Umbraco is a free CMS that is built on top of the Microsoft .NET platform. If you are new to Umbraco then getting it installed on your local development machine is straightforward. Umbraco provides several different methods to download Umbraco. In today’s guide, I’m going to cover the different approaches for you.

Download Umbraco via Nuget

I’m assuming most people reading this guide are C# developers and are comfortable using Visual Studio and NuGet. If you fall into this category then downloading Umbraco is your easiest option.

I’ve written a comprehensive guide about the installation process here, Installing Umbraco 7 In Visual Studio Via Nuget. For a quick re-cap, create a normal MVC project, in Nuget search for Umbraco and follow the instructions in the guide.

This approach is the recommended approach by Umbraco and if you are not very familiar with NuGet then this is your best option. The Microsoft Web platform installer takes a lot of the complexity of trying to install software on your development PC away from you. The web installer will do all the steps required to get you up and running with Umbraco. It will download Umbraco, install the Umbraco database and configure IIS for you.

Download Umbraco and Install It Manually

The last option to install Umbraco is to do the job manually yourself. If you need to install or upgrade a very early version of Umbraco (less than 4.7). As Umbraco on version 7.3 of writing this then I doubt that anyone new to Umbraco would need to do this.

I would say if you are new to .NET and setting up websites in general, you may get some benefit of running through this process once, but as Nuget and the Microsoft Web Installer does such a good job of installing Umbraco for you, that after doing it once, there really is no point in wasting time on things that can be automated.

Conclusion

In today’s guide, I’ve covered the three main ways to get started. If you want to download Umbraco and install it on your computer the process couldn’t be easier. All you need to do is decide if you want to install Umbraco via Nuget, The WebMatix or install it manually and read one of my free guides. Personally, if you can use Nuget I recommend starting there.

Software Architect, Programmer and Technologist Jon Jones is founder and CEO of London-based tech firm Digital Prompt. He has been working in the field for nearly a decade, specializing in new technologies and technical solution research in the web business. A passionate blogger by heart , speaker & consultant from England.. always on the hunt for the next challenge

UMBRACO DEVELOPER?

UMBRACO HOSTING GUIDE

Sponsers

Connect

Hi, I'm Jon, I write articles about creating and optimizing websites as well as making money from your online business. I am technical architect and technology fanatic by profession. You can find out more about me by signing up to my newsletter.